FCC wants free broadband service, plus content filtering

FCC Chair Kevin Martin wants to auction a new broadband license that comes out …

The Federal Communications Commission is looking for a bidder to provide free broadband service in the 1.9 GHz-2.1 GHz bands, agency Chair Kevin Martin told reporters on Friday. The data will have to download at a minimum of 768 kilobits, Martin said, provided at a "pretty aggressive" build out schedule: Half the United States population must be able to access it after four years, and 95% by the time the license comes up for renewal. The agency will pony up about 25 Megahertz of spectrum for this in an Advanced Wireless Services auction (AWS-3)—details to be disclosed in a Report and Order unveiled at the Commission's Open Meeting scheduled for June 12th.

There will be one more requirement for the service. A spokesperson for the Commission has told Ars that the FCC wants it to include "content filters." For what? We asked. "To protect children," came the reply. Against what?? you smart Ars readers are doubtless demanding with that frustrated tone we have come to love.

Sorry. Those five words are all they gave us. But this is all starting to sound very deja vu, as per the Great M2Z Proposal.

As Ars has reported, for several years the M2Z Network ran a marathon campaign to get the FCC to give the startup a license in the 2155-2175 band to do pretty much what the FCC is proposing now. Their standard spiel promised to

provide an advertiser based national broadband service that consumers will access from their computers like television after they purchase a "relatively inexpensive M2Z-certified reception device available from various competitive vendors."

include a "compulsory setting" in the system "that will utilize state of the art network filtering technology to take every reasonable and available step to block access to sites purveying pornographic, obscene or indecent material." The service will filter porn out "without the need for special end-user software," the company said.

pay the U.S. Treasury five percent of its gross revenues from its "Premium Service."

M2Z's top commitment: "Free wireless broadband access to 95 percent of the American population within 10 years." Gosh, where does that Kevin Martin get his ideas?

A veritable battalion of high level endorsers besieged the agency with their M2Z accolades. "I know many Utahns would welcome the opportunity to provide their children with the educational and economic opportunity which broadband access can provide without having to become software engineers in order to protect their children," no less than Senator Orin Hatch (R-UT) wrote to the FCC last year.

Alas, in September the Commission said no. The agency could not see its way to just handing out this spectrum to M2Z or some other firm without launching some public comment cycle and auctioning out the license (This position was encouraged by CTIA - The Wireless Association, which hated the M2Z proposal and said so). Then things got weird, with M2Z threatening to sue, and then saying it wouldn't sue, then sort of disappearing.

But not really. In fact, Michael Meece, a representative of the M2Z Network group, had a telephone conversation with Kevin Martin on Thursday about the impending AWS-3 auction. Meece called for "technologically neutral mobile-to-mobile emission limits" in the band, and recommended that the technical service rules for AWS-3 compare to the Upper 700 MHz, "making the band well suited for the delivery of wireless broadband services to consumers."

Sounds like the M2Z crowd is getting ready for their second act. But they are not alone. Last Monday Congressmember Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ) resubmitted to the FCC his endorsement of the NetFree US proposal for the 2155-2175 zone. They also propose a free service, but unlike M2Z, NetFree would lease the spectrum to cities, entrepreneurs, and other groups. Collectively, they would make the band open on a "private commons" basis to peer-to-peer and device-to-device communicators.

In their prior filings, both M2Z and NetfreeUS proposed to make their networks available to public safety groups. It will be interesting to see what they say now in light of the FCC's proceeding on how to re-auction the 700 MHz public safety D block, which failed to sell at the agency's asking reserve price.

No wonder then that, when a reporter asked Kevin Martin on Friday whether he thought this new AWS-3 proposal will draw bids, given its "encumbrances" and the FCC's recent D Block debacle, Martin still seemed pretty confident. The FCC Chair cited "numerous parties that have been in the record that have actually indicated that they would be interested in having these kinds of encumbrances put on not just one company but several." He didn't mention CTIA's latest filing, which argues darkly against "certain proposals" that "could skew an auction to the benefit of one entity or business model and create interference to adjacent Advanced Wireless Services ("AWS-1") licensees." The trade group urged "continued fair, open auctions with flexible service rules, rather than tailored conditions that may favor certain parties over others."

Keeping things sunny side, Martin also pointed to "legislation pending up on the Hill that would propose requiring us to structure the auction that way [presumably the M2Z/NetFree way]." This would refer to Representative Anna G. Eschoo's (D-CA) Wireless Internet Nationwide for Families Act, which sort of smooshes M2Z and NetFree US's ideas together, mandating a smut-free, open platform network in the 2155-2175MHz band area. At present the bill has five endorsers, including Ed Markey (D-MA), Michael Doyle (D-PA), and Christopher Cannon (R-UT).

Maybe Martin shouldn't wait for the Hill, though. Eschoo introduced the bill on April 17th. It hasn't gotten out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. And there's no parallel bill in the Senate yet.

Matthew Lasar / Matt writes for Ars Technica about media/technology history, intellectual property, the FCC, or the Internet in general. He teaches United States history and politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz.